Professor Agassiz, a distinguished American naturalist,
discovered the indefatigable activities of his subconscious
mind while he slept. The following has been reported by his
widow in her biography of her famous husband. “He had
been for two weeks striving to decipher the somewhat obscure
impression of a fossil fish on the stone slab in which it was
preserved. Weary and perplexed, he put his work aside at last,
and tried to dismiss it from his mind. Shortly after, he waked
one night persuaded that while asleep he had seen his fish with
all the missing features perfectly restored. But when he tried to
hold and make fast the image it escaped him. Nevertheless, he
went early to the Jardin des Plantes, thinking that on looking
anew at the impression he should see something which would
put him on the track of his vision. In vain the blurred record
was as black as ever. The next night he saw the fish again, but
with no more satisfactory result. When he awoke it of disappeared from his memory as before. Hoping that the same experience
might be repeated, on the third night he placed a pencil and
paper beside his bed before going to sleep.
“Accordingly, toward morning the fish reappeared in his
dream, confusedly at first, but at last with such distinctness that
he had no longer any doubt as to its zoological characters. Still
half dreaming, in perfect darkness, he traced these characters
on the sheet of paper at the bedside. In the morning he
was surprised to see in his nocturnal sketch features which
he thought it impossible the fossil itself should reveal. He
hastened to the Jardin des Plantes, and, with his drawing as
a guide, succeeded in chiseling away the surface of the stone
under which portions of the fish proved to be hidden. When
wholly exposed it corresponded with his dream’ and his
drawing, and he succeeded in classifying it with ease.”